Well, winter is here with snow, freezing temperatures and an icy wind outside. So I finally opened my furnace room in the basement a couple of days ago to get the good old woodstove going against the chill. It gets the house really cozy warm and wood is fairly cheap around here.

Needless to say that an open doorway that used to be closed possesses an irresistible attraction for furballs. So my four had to do some investigating before I could start a fire. Oh, but there's so much to investigate in that room: A shelf full with wood logs, a box with twigs, dry bark and tinder, another box with unused pine pellet cat litter (it makes a nice, crackling addition to any fire), several paper bags with all sorts of paper waste, a bucket with ash (and fortunately a tightly-closing lid!), and from my last move two boxes full with bunched up newspapers and packing paper from unwrapping the dishes. They certainly had fun jumping through all the bags and boxes and climbing the logs until it lost its novelty factor.

Fortunately, they are all smart enough to stay clear of the woodstove when it's in use. As a matter of fact, three of them are staying outside of that room while I have a fire going. Only Mikesch apparently thinks underneath the woodstove is a good place for a nap - the little devil is a real heat junkie and that's gotta be the warmest spot in the whole house right now (except for the top of the stove which certainly would not be a good place to take a nap at all).

So this evening after getting home I opened the furnace room and ~sniffsniff~ there's a distinct odor of cat pee. My nose has grown quite sensitive to that smell over the last few weeks and there was no doubt what it was. I wasn't overly surprised - after all the cats were all over the place and one of the boxes had cat litter in it even though they all four refused to use it while it was in their litter box (which is how it ended up as kindling for the woodstove in the furnace room).

So I started building a woodpile, kindling first, logs loosely on top. I test-smelled the pine pellets - nope, wasn't them, wherever whoever had peed, it wasn't in the wood pellet litter. So I sprinkled a few handfuls generously over the woodpile. I proceeded to stuff some paper into the holes between logs and kindling as additional fire starter material and then last but not least grabbed for the bunched up newspaper to place it on top to get a quickie fire burst to warm the chimney flue and make sure it pulls properly.

Well, you can probably guess already... The moment I grabbed the shredded newspaper, I had wet fingers. Urgh! Bingo, found the source of the pee smell...

Lesson learned: The best litter box ever appears to be a moving box filled with bunched-up newspaper.

These cats of ours are rascals, aren't they! Can't they just pee in their litter boxes and leave it at that???

LOL you poor thing

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"After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference."

& you know, if you put bunched up newspaper in the litter trays, they wouldn't use it!